Members

Zaida "Zan" Luthey-Schulten isprimarily responsible for the GPU-based integrative cell modeling of 4D whole cell models (4DWCMs) and knowledge transfer with NVIDIA. She is responsible for all NSF reporting requirements.

She received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Southern California in 1969, a M.S. in Chemistry from Harvard University in 1972, and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University in 1975. From 1975 to 1980, she was a Research Fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Goettingen, and from 1980 to 1985, a Research Fellow in the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Technical University of Munich. She is theMurchison-Mallory Endowed Chair in Chemistry. Zan closely collaborates with many theory and experimental groups in the center, as well as outside groups, to unify -omics, microscopy and many other types of data into 4DWCMs of bacterial, yeast and human cells.

Martin is responsible for imaging and tracking experimental efforts with MINFLUX and will coordinate with the computational and outreach teams, as well as the director and team leaders. He and Glenn Fried are the primary contact for knowledge transfer with Abberior Instruments.

He received his B.S. in 1984, and his Ph.D. in 1988, both from the UC Berkeley. After working as a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois in 1992. He is theJames R. Eiszner Endowed Chair in Chemistry. His group studies virus capsids and beads ranging in size from 30-150 nm in live cells, using MINFLUX as a probe of mesoscale structure in nucleus and cytoplasm via diffusion, and will measure interactions between individual pairs of proteins in the live mammalian cell using MINFLUX, including spliceosome and other dynamic organelles where the whole-cell models need inputs. Published collaborations with Zan Luthey-Schulten, Emad Tajkorshid and others in the center focus on whole-cell and even organismal dynamics.

Rohit is a team leader for advanced optical experiments, such as IR tomography and optogenetics. His lab is engaged in fundamental advances in measurement technology that can record spectroscopic data from exceptionally small volumes of single cells. Rohit and his colleagues advanced previous methods to increase greatly the reliability and speed of chemical imaging data. They are currently working with Mark Anastasio to develop more sensitive spectral analysis methods with signal processing of recorded data. They are working with Martin Gruebele to quantify spectral properties of metabolites. And, they have started working with Angad Mehta group to chemically image changes in yeast mitochondrial dynamics alter metabolism. Rohit also directs the Cancer Center at Illinois, with synergies in imaging and how cells respond to perturbations.

Sharlene is responsible for overseeing the Broader Impacts aims of the STC for Quantitative Cell Biology. She serves on the Executive Committee and chairs the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) committee. She will manage outreach, diversity, and professional development programs for the center, including the annual Summer School in Quantitative Cell Biology, the Villa-Cisse Scholars Program, the Summer Sabbatical, and STC-QCB CARES Program.

She received her B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the UC Santa Cruz and her Ph.D. in Biophysics and Quantitative Biology from Illinois. She is currently a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Physics Department at UIUC, where she oversees the development of courses in biological physics to be ported to other universities with help of the QCB, as well as many diversity and public engagement initiatives.

Julia contributed to advancement of cryo-focused ion beam preparations from intact cells, their synergy with state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopy imaging, spearheaded the development of 3D cryo-correlative confocal fluorescence microscopy for site-specific preparations, and pioneered cryo-FIB lift-out for visual proteomics in multicellular specimens. She and her group at the EMBL, an international team of interdisciplinary researchers, continue to develop cryo-electron tomography to achieved unprecedented resolution for macromolecular complexes and their organization inside cells to give rise to complex biology. They will collaborate with members of the STC to harness these data towards constructing realistic ultrastructural and molecular representations of whole cells.

Angad's team leads the chemical biology components of center research. His lab has created yeast mutants that alter mitochondrial function and could alter mitochondrial networks. He uses fluorescence confocal imaging to test the correlation between mitochondrial function or dysfunction genotypes to changes in the mitochondrial dynamics. His group collaborates with Rohit Bhargava’s lab to perform imaging studies to investigate how changes in yeast mitochondrial dynamics alter metabolism. Angad’s lab has generated transcriptomics data for the minimal cell (strain syn1), and is currently working with HPCBio and Zan Luthey-Schulten’s lab to analyze the transcriptional profile of the minimal cells. They are also working on generating more replicates of these transcriptomics datasets. This is expected to inform operons, operonic structure, and relative abundances of all the transcripts within the minimal cell. They have also worked with Taekjip Ha’s lab on imaging studies of the minimal cell to study its cell division process.

Erik’s research is focused on understanding structure and function of ligand-gated ion channels, particularly in the human nervous system. Much of his team’s work is dependent on large computer resources, so they develop numerous computational tools, particularly in the codes GROMACS & RELION. Like molecular simulation technology in GROMACS to enable modeling, simulation and analysis of systems with hundreds of millions to billions of particles and combining cryo-EM and cryo-ET data, such as collected by Mahamid’s group, with molecular modeling. Together with a number of universities in Europe, they have established a new EU-funded center-of-excellence for computational biomolecular research, BioExcel, where he’s the lead scientist. Since 2014, he has served on the Scientific Steering Committee for the European Computer Infrastructure PRACE, as well as chair of the Scientific Steering Committee and on the PRACE Board of Directors. Presently, he sits on the Research and Industrial Advisory Group of EuroHPC. He holds a PhD in Theoretical Biophysics from KTH, Stockholm, Sweden, and has authored more than 130 publications.